The Complete Rob Bell: His Seven Bestselling Books, All in One Place. Rob Bell

The Complete Rob Bell: His Seven Bestselling Books, All in One Place - Rob  Bell


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it is themselves they are following.

      Everybody is following somebody. Everybody has faith in something and somebody.

      We are all believers.

      Way

      As a Christian, I am simply trying to orient myself around living a particular kind of way, the kind of way that Jesus taught is possible. And I think that the way of Jesus is the best possible way to live.

      This isn’t irrational or primitive or blind faith. It is merely being honest that we all are living a “way.”

      I’m convinced being generous is a better way to live.

      I’m convinced forgiving people and not carrying around bitterness is a better way to live. I’m convinced having compassion is a better way to live. I’m convinced pursuing peace in every situation is a better way to live. I’m convinced listening to the wisdom of others is a better way to live. I’m convinced being honest with people is a better way to live.

      This way of thinking isn’t weird or strange; it is simply acknowledging that everybody follows somebody, and I’m trying to follow Jesus.

      Over time when you purposefully try to live the way of Jesus, you start noticing something deeper going on. You begin realizing the reason this is the best way to live is that it is rooted in profound truths about how the world is. You find yourself living more and more in tune with ultimate reality. You are more and more in sync with how the universe is at its deepest levels.

      And God is the ultimate reality. There is nothing more beyond God.

      Jesus at one point claimed to be “the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus was not making claims about one religion being better than all other religions. That completely misses the point, the depth, and the truth. Rather, he was telling those who were following him that his way is the way to the depth of reality. This kind of life Jesus was living, perfectly and completely in connection and cooperation with God, is the best possible way for a person to live. It is how things are.

      Jesus exposes us to reality at its rawest.

      So the way of Jesus is not about religion; it’s about reality.

      Perhaps a better question than who’s right, is who’s living rightly?

      Springs

      This is where the springs on the trampoline come in. When we jump, we begin to see the need for springs. The springs help make sense of these deeper realities that drive how we live every day. The springs aren’t God. The springs aren’t Jesus. The springs are statements and beliefs about our faith that help give words to the depth that we are experiencing in our jumping. I would call these the doctrines of the Christian faith.

      They aren’t the point.

      They help us understand the point, but they are a means and not an end. We take them seriously, and at the same time we keep them in proper perspective.

      In fact, its stretch and flex are what make it so effective. It is firmly attached to the frame and the mat, yet it has room to move. And it has brought a fuller, deeper, richer understanding to the mysterious being who is God.

      Once again, the springs aren’t God. They have emerged over time as people have discussed and studied and experienced and reflected on their growing understanding of who God is. Our words aren’t absolutes. Only God is absolute, and God has no intention of sharing this absoluteness with anything, especially words people have come up with to talk about him. This is something people have struggled with since the beginning: how to talk about God when God is bigger than our words, our brains, our worldviews, and our imaginations.

      No form, no shape.

      Nothing you could see.

      In Moses’s day, the way you honored and respected whatever gods you followed was by making carvings or sculptures of them and then bowing down to what you had made. These were gods you could get your mind around. Moses is confronting people with an entirely new concept of what the true God is like. He is claiming that no statue or carving could ever capture this God, because this God has no shape or form.

      This was a revolutionary idea in the history of religion.

      You are holding a book in your hands. It has shape and volume and weight and all the stuff that makes it a thing.

      It has thingness.

      This book has edges and boundaries that define it as a finite thing. It is a book and nothing else.

      But the writers of the Bible go to great lengths to describe God as a being with no edges or boundaries or limits. God has no thingness because there’s no end to God.

      Doesn’t really clear things up, does it?

      Moses is looking for a being he can wrap his mind around. Is this the god of water or power or soil or fertility? All the other gods made sense; you could understand them—who they were and what they did and what they stood for. But this God is different. Mysterious. Unfathomable.

      “I am.”

      The name’s origins come from the verb to be, so some read it as “I will be who I will be.”

      Others suggest it should be read like this: “I always have been, I am, and I always will be.”

      Perhaps this is God’s way of saying, “If your goal is to figure me out and totally understand me, it’s not going to happen. Even my name is more than you can comprehend.”

      Later Moses says to God, “Now show me your glory.”

      Which is our way of saying, “I need more. I need something I can see. Something tangible.”


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